The 2024 season of Geelong premiership player Gary Rohan is all but over, after confirming on social media he will undergo surgery on a fractured skull.
Rohan, who played VFL on Saturday morning alongside fellow veterans Tom Hawkins and Cameron Guthrie, was knocked in the first quarter of their semi-final against Southport.
Rohan announced both the extent of his injury and wellbeing in an Instagram post on Sunday night with his partner Madi in hospital.
The key forward is one of 15 Cats out of contract for next year, albeit two of those in Hawkins and Zach Tuohy have announced that season will be their last at the top level.
Rohan has played 12 games in 2024 for the senior side, although four have been as the starting substitute, while two others he was subbed out with injury.
Geelong booked themselves a spot in the preliminary final with a thumping 84-point win over Port Adelaide last Thursday night, and will now play one of GWS or Brisbane at the MCG next weekend.
KEY HAWK DOWN AND OUT FOR SEASON 2024
Hawthorn has copped a major blow to its defensive stocks with tall Sam Frost ruled out for the rest of the year.
The engigmatic backman has suffered bone stress in his foot after feeling discomfort post-game and won’t play again this year, as first reported by Seven’s Mitch Cleary.
“Unfortunately, the scans have confirmed that Sam has a bone stress injury in his foot, and given his specific injury, he will not be able to take any further part in our 2024 finals campaign,” Hawks head doctor Liam West said.
“Sam will spend the next period offloading in a moon boot whilst we continue to assess him to determine a more accurate recovery timeline.”
Frost played well on Aaron Naughton in the Hawks’ elimination final win over the Bulldogs and, while Tom Barrass and Josh Battle want to join the Waverley Park club for 2025, for now Frost’s absence will leave them with limited stocks.
Jai Serong, who has shown strong recent VFL form but hasn’t featured at AFL level since Round 9, Ethan Phillips, who played against the Power earlier this year, and Changkuoth Jiath, who is more of a pacey halfback option, would be the leading contenders to replace Frost.
NO PAIN FOR PAYNE? LIONS GIVE UPDATE
Brisbane coach Chris Fagan is optimistic key defender Jack Payne will be available for his side’s do-or-die finals affair against the GWS Giants next Saturday despite injuring his knee in the Lions’ 28-point win over Carlton.
Payne hobbled off in the second quarter of Brisbane’s 14.15 (99) to 11.5 (71) elimination final victory at the Gabba on Saturday night.
He didn’t return to the field, with substitute Conor McKenna activated at the start of the second-half.
Payne, who had just returned from a foot injury, is set to go for scans, however Fagan seemed hopeful that the injury wasn’t as serious as first feared.
“We’ve got a level of optimism he could be right for next week,” Fagan said.
“It’s not necessarily all bad. We’ll get some scans and see how it is.
“If we had to put him back out there, we could have tried to, but there probably wasn’t any point in doing that.”
Payne played a part in Brisbane’s early onslaught that gave them the advantage over the Blues.
Brisbane dominated so much that at one point in the second quarter, the score was 60-0.
And even though a burst of goals each side of halftime helped the Blues seem decent on the scoreboard, the Lions were never in any real danger.
For 50–55 minutes, that was arguably the finest football we’ve played this year, according to Fagan.
We aimed to try to take the early advantage, and I doubt we would have done it as successfully.
For the first half of the game, the performance was fairly forceful.
“I felt we did a pretty good job of controlling the game, slowing it down, and positioning ourselves well by the three-quarter mark,” the coach said.
The Giants, who ended one spot above Brisbane on the standings, are the team the Lions have little chance of defeating the following weekend in Sydney, according to Fagan.
“We’ll challenge anybody if we can play the football we played tonight, especially in the first half,” he declared.
Fagan, though, rejected the “narrative” that the Lions would enter the game with more momentum following the Giants’ six-point loss to Sydney, the minor premiers, in Saturday’s qualifying final.
“The narrative is that everyone gets down on the Giants because they lost, and over the course of the year, everyone gets excited about the teams down the bottom of the eight that win,” he added.
They’ll be committed to making a comeback. We must perform well if we are to defeat them on their home pitch.
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